


Catharsis

by alicekittridge



Series: This Is Where I Leave You [2]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: And when I say slight I mean very slight, Angst, F/F, Graphic Violence, Like a pause, Oneshot, Other, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Revenge, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:26:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25027666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: They took in the fact that this rainy beach could very well be their end.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Series: This Is Where I Leave You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829836
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	Catharsis

**Author's Note:**

> I finally played through to the end of the game, and let me tell you, it was a painful ride. This is my take on the almost-ending, since I found myself wishing there had been more of a conversation between Ellie and Abby during their fight scene. It was painful to write. I'm sorry it'll be painful to read. Please mind the tags. And thank you, as always, for reading xx
> 
> Additional note: I've embellished on some of the dialogue and scenes to suit my own piece. Other than that, a good portion of it belongs to Naughty Dog.

**D** espite her best efforts, Ellie had been persuaded by Tommy’s visit. The mention of Santa Barbara rekindled an old flame. It grew slowly from hot coals to full fire as she lay awake, kissed by the cool air drifting from the open window, head swimming with visions of beaches and Abby’s face. The dreaming forms of Dina and J.J. were not enough to sway her.

She rose when enough time passed, dressing quietly, shuffling away from the cozy enclosure of the bedroom to pack her bag. And when Dina came downstairs, as Ellie knew she would, her heart became cracked glass.

“He’s never slept this long, has he?” Dina said.

“He takes after his mother,” Ellie replied.

“Might be a good thing. His father was an early bird.” She stepped closer. “You don’t have to do this.”

Ellie sighed. “I do.”

“Ellie.” Dina’s warm hands found her face. “Think about what you have here. A family. Animals, a house… A damn good life.”

“I’m doing a poor job of keeping it together,” she said. “I don’t eat. I barely sleep. I…” Her voice faded into quietness. “I’m a haunted person, Dina.”

“And you think it’s been easy for me?”

“It hasn’t. I fucking know it hasn’t.” Ellie took Dina’s hand, pressed a kiss to her palm. “You’re caring for two people.”

“Ellie…”

She wanted to kiss away Dina’s tears, forget Tommy’s visit and everything it presented, lead Dina to the couch, make love to her while the opportunity lay before them. She would’ve, had the images of Abby’s face not eaten her brain half the night. Instead she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Dina’s. She whispered, “I can’t stay.”

Dina sniffled, pulled away, turned her back. “I’m not doing this again.”

“That’s up to you,” Ellie said quietly, backing toward the front door. “Always will be.”

Dina stood in the entryway, back still turned, bathed in cold moonlight.

—

She walked to Santa Barbara. It took all of spring and a third of summer and many uncertain nights, until she found herself pointing a silenced machine gun at a groaning bandit. She demanded Abby’s location. He stumbled over a description of her and the boy she was travelling with, adding on the building in which they were being held.

Ellie shot him in the face.

Her side burned with every step, faded when the adrenaline of taking out more Rattlers kicked in, flared again when she ascended the round building’s stairs.

The door led to a room full of packed holding cells. She was immediately attacked by the guard, who was then choked by the prisoners with her own gun. Once freed, they stole the weapons from the lockers. Guns trained on her when a blond man realized she was bitten. Ellie did not see Abby among them.

“You know an Abby?” she said.

The blond man nodded. “She tried to escape.”

“What does that mean?”

“Death.” He jerked his chin to the wooden door on Ellie’s right. “Out that way. Find the beach.”

Their rebellion left the building engulfed in flames.

Clouds had rolled in from the sea, turning the world an ominous grey. Fog accompanied it, thin outside the beach, thick once Ellie reached the shore, obscuring mounted figures that were dotted along the beach’s expanse. All of them were prisoners, strung up and tied in some form of crucifixion. Most were dead. Some were dying. All were emaciated. Ellie gazed at them, only recognizing Abby by her clothes and the shape of her face.

They’d cut her hair. It was shaggy, like a boy’s, dirty from nature.

“Abby,” Ellie whispered.

Eyes struggled open. The reply was weak. “You.” There was no venom in it, only half-dead acknowledgement. “Help me,” Abby whispered. “Please.”

It would be easy to kill her now. But she didn’t deserve easy, nor did she deserve to be left hanging for seagulls to tear at her rotting flesh.

She cut Abby down.

The other girl fell heavily onto the wet sand. She stumbled to her feet, muscles out of shape from lack of use. As Abby untied the boy that hung across from her, Ellie wondered who this cowering animal was. Where was the brutal ox that had crashed into the theatre and beaten everyone bloody? She was replaced by a lamb.

Abby hefted the unconscious boy into a bridal carry. She turned back to Ellie. “There are boats this way.”

Ellie followed them through the fog. The sky opened up, cold rain appearing from nowhere. Joel’s crushed head flashed in the lightning. The strike of Abby’s golf club resounded in the thunder.

They waded into the shallows. Cool saltwater licked their thighs, the waves choppy with wind. Abby gently laid the boy on her boat’s back bench. She couldn’t see Ellie repositioning her knife in her hand.

Ellie’s voice wavered on her declaration. “I can’t let you leave.”

Abby paused. Her shoulders sank only a fraction. 

Ellie closed the gap between them, pulling Abby away from the boat and into the water.

She didn’t offer up any defense. She said, “I won’t fight you.”

Ellie kicked her ribs.

Abby fell, blubbered seawater.

“You will,” Ellie growled.

Abby laughed, taking Ellie aback. “What do you think killing me will do?” she breathed, holding a hand against her side. “Give you catharsis? Relief?”

Did you ask yourself the same thing before you killed Joel?”

“I’m not that person anymore.”

Ellie grabbed the front of Abby’s shirt. Struck her solar plexus with her foot. Abby rolled onto her side, gulping air. Still she spoke around it, the words a desperate-sounding string. “I still see… my daddy’s bloody body. Who’s to say you… won’t see the same when you’re done with me?”

She backpedaled away from Ellie’s approach. She repeated, “I won’t fight you.”

Ellie had killed Abby’s friends. The man and the pregnant woman. She had no one left that she cared about, save for one person.

Ellie turned back to the boat and held her knife to the unconscious boy’s throat. “You fucking will.”

“Okay!” Abby shouted, rising on rickety feet. “Okay.”

Time stilled for only a moment.

They charged at much the same time. For someone making quicker friends with death, Abby was surprisingly offensive, fueled by a need to survive, while Ellie relied on anger and remembered dreams and memories of blood and caved-in skulls.

They stumbled, came together, stumbled again, Abby’s face turning scarlet from knife cuts and punches. The saltwater stung like hell. They were made aware of their many wounds. Both took in the fact that this rainy beach could very well be their end.

They fought harder, despite exhaustion, blows becoming clumsy. There were longer pauses, longer, more desperate attempts for air. They were bloody dolls floundering through the water.

Ellie pounced after a pause, pinning Abby in the shallows, knife bared, pushing against Abby’s counter, groaning with the effort it took to drive the tip home—into her chest.

Abby’s scream was horrendous.

Dark red pooled on her shirt, spread like rinsed pain in the water.

She kicked Ellie away.

They lay, beached fish on their sides, sucking in air. Abby was whimpering, cursing, nearly sobbing, saying what sounded like names.

It’ll be easy, Ellie told herself, rising, clutching her bleeding side. Take her now while she’s down and can’t fight back. Eye for a fucking eye.

Abby struggled when she grabbed her. They wrestled, grappling against each other, losing footing, hands clinging to each other with nails.

There was a window where Abby held the advantage. Ellie pushed back.

Teeth sank into her last two fingers.

She screamed as they were torn off.

The blinding pain of it pulsed with red images. _Joel. Jesse. Shooting the man. Slitting the pregnant woman’s throat with her own shiv. Joel._

Ellie shoved and held Abby’s top half underneath the water.

_Joel. Joel._

Rain and sea and blood and tears blended on her face.

_Joel._

Abby bucked underneath her.

_Joel._

_He’s sitting with a guitar, noodling something Ellie doesn’t know. It sounds beautiful._

_“You gonna tell me what that song is?” she asks, interrupting his reverie. “You play it all the time.”_

_His smile shines in his eyes._

She crawled back, releasing Abby. The other girl rushed up, wheezing, coughing, spitting blood and water.

“Take him,” Ellie said between breaths, barely audible. “Fucking take him and go.”

She didn’t hear the boat start, or pull away into the wake of choppy waves. Too caught up in the tide of the memory.

“Joel,” she wept, “forgive me…”


End file.
